After a chest operation such as a mastectomy operation, the patient is normally bandaged with an absorbent material over the incision and wrapped with an elastic band or dressing of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,803 to Hyman entitled "Surgical Chest Dressing". The Hyman patent is owned by a common assignee with this application and the disclosure thereof is incorporated herein by reference.
Elastic bands are deficient in many cases because they distort the unoperated breast and sometimes restrict the normal respiration of the patient involving expansion and contraction of the chest. Moreover, the patient has to be held in a partially upright position to apply the elastic band which is often quite uncomfortable. Also, when the dressing has to be changed, it is a complex procedure which can not be done by the patient or an untrained person.
To overcome these limitations, a dressing as disclosed in the patent to Hyman was adopted as a substitute for the elastic band. While providing substantial improvements over the elastic band, there still remains several problems which can adversely effect the comfort and overall usefulness of the chest dressing described in the Hyman patent. In this respect, after a mastectomy operation the muscles along the sides of the patient, which have been injured and/or traumatized by the operation, need support to reduce movement and, therefore, the significant discomfort which postoperative patients often experience. At the same time, the support cannot be such that the user has difficulty in breathing or that body movement is overly restricted. Also, in some circumstances, the chest dressing disclosed in the patent to Hyman presses against the absorbent bandages applied to the incision on one or both breasts and presses the breasts against the patient's chest so that the outer sides of the breasts bulge outward and cause both physical and psychological discomfort. In some circumstances too, the pressure of the dressing against the breasts causes the flesh surrounding the breasts to withdraw under the arms of the patient. Again, this is quite uncomfortable for the user. This can also happen when the patient has excess flesh under her arms and along her sides which naturally tends to bulge out when the breasts are pressed against her chest by the dressing.
Another deficiency in the device disclosed in the patent to Hyman relates to the shoulder straps which are connected at one end to the rear of the band wrapped around the patient and are adjustably fastened to the front of the band so as to lie over the shoulders of the patient and support the band against slipping downwards. However, in practice the straps tend to cause the wrapped band to move upwards and downwards, thus causing discomfort for the wearer. Further, the elastic material is generally rough and uncomfortable and tends to cut into and irritate the shoulders of the user. Still another deficiency relating to the shoulder straps is that the fasteners for the straps, i.e. VELCRO fasteners, were positioned near the rear of the band which prevented the patient from easily and independently adjusting the length of the straps.